Ok, it's useless to hope to get by with “only” three articles: the world press, not only the Italian one, is hot in these days about Avatar. If in Italy the movie of James Cameron devoted to “blue native” of Pandora has already grossed, according to latest estimates, 11 million euros, in China box offices exceeded yet 80 million dollars, though the authorities have decided to limit distribution to only the 2D version (which also screened in at least half of the Italian cinemas), reserving rooms equipped for 3D for the local “cinepanettone” Confucius, as Reuters reported.

If you consider that a few days ago, Google has discovered (what a surprise) that Beijing does not intend to change its policy on filtering and censorship on the web even if this could lead to the exit from Chinese market of the company of Page and Brin (a vacuum that many analysts think would be immediately covered by the Chinese competitor Baidu.com), you can understand how the decision taken in April last year, to boost the economy by encouraging the growth of the Chinese domestic market rather than exports, likely to have important consequences in medium term for the whole world, the United States first.

Maybe it won’t be true that the Beijing authorities have attempted to restrict the viewing of a movie like Avatar that might appear, as well as a “sci-fi” version of Disney’s Pocahontas, also a criticism of all colonial exploitation, starting from that of Africa, where the United States and China for years have been struggling to gain control of important raw materials like oil, uranium and silicon, but it is likely that Avatar can go down in history not only as the first blockbuster 3D movie dedicated to the concept of virtual reality and identities (although very different from what we are used to browsing the web or logging into Second Life), but also as the first opportunity for real cultural clash between East and West.

Not because it contains within itself a particular message, I repeat, but because giving up an “intensive” launch of the movie Beijing actually sends word to Hollywood that it can do without her, just like of Google and in the future of Microsoft, General Motors or any other major Western corporations, being the largest market in the world. A market that is likely to close, as has happened many times in history, to the West if the West will not find the path of dialogue. And they say that virtual reality is just a game...